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Ms Iris Magoro says that she fails to understand why the municipality cannot fix the sewage problem.

Not an end to Tskhikota sewage problems

 

The eight-year battle for seven households from Tshikota to get their sewage problems sorted out still continues and it seems to be far from coming to an end with a clear resolution.

This was brought to Limpopo Mirror's attention last week by concerned families who claim that municipal workers came and only fixed one part of the problem instead of addressing the whole sewerage system in the area.

“They successfully fixed the sewage problem at the back of my house and no faecal water can be seen storming onto the back of my house any longer,” Ms Iris Mogoro, of house number 2025, acknowledged. “Now the problem is that they have dug a deep trench which almost encircles my yard. The trench is always open, smelly, and there are a lot of mosquitoes which invade my yard and finally find their way into my house.”

The trench was dug around November last year, after Limpopo Mirror carried the first story.

Magoro added that her youngest daughter, aged 14, had  gone to bed three days before on an empty stomach and still could not take breakfast the following morning after complaining about the stench from the trench. “She said the smell of faeces assailed her nose and killed her appetite,” she complained. “I am her mother and it pains me when my child cannot eat. She needs nutrition, so that she can focus on her school work.”

Half of Magoro's yard is matted with a carpet of green lawn, which could be ideal for resting on during sunny days. However, the family is afraid of mowing the lawn and using it for lounging on, lest they catch a disease as the grass might have been contaminated with possible viruses and germs from the open sewer.

On Friday and Saturday, Limpopo Mirror visited Tshikota and noticed that there were also two sewer streams which continued to course in the open on the other side of the street, emptying into the hazardous trench. Two children, who looked no more than five years of age, were playing near the trench, eating mangos.

An electrical line to Magoro's house and another pipe run inside the open trench, always drenched with fresh sewage.

“I have lost hope already, but the pain in me and the faeces which surrounds us push me to complain,” Magoro said.

When contacted for comment, the Vhembe District Municipality's media liaison officer, Mr Moses Shibambu, said that he thought the problem had already been addressed when he had first brought the matter to the officials' attention in November last year. However, he then promised that the workers would visit the affected area immediately.

 

The municipal workers had dug and left the trench open since November last year.

Open sewage runs along the street and falls into the trench in front Ms Iris Magoro's house in Tshikota.

 

Date:22 January 2015

By: Tshifhiwa Mukwevho

Tshifhiwa Given Mukwevho was born in 1984 in Madombidzha village, not far from Louis Trichardt in the Limpopo Province. After submitting articles for roughly a year for Limpopo Mirror's youth supplement, Makoya, he started writing for the main newspaper. He is a prolific writer who published his first book, titled A Traumatic Revenge in 2011. It focusses on life on the street and how to survive amidst poverty. His second book titled The Violent Gestures of Life was published in 2014.

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